Introduction

On July 2, 2025, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian formally enacted a law suspending Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The move, approved unanimously by Iran’s parliament and endorsed by the Guardian Council, effectively halted inspections and reporting on Iran’s nuclear program by the agency “until the security of the nuclear facilities is guaranteed.”¹ The legislation marks the most significant shift in Iran’s nuclear posture since the country’s accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1970.

This dramatic step came in the immediate aftermath of the 2025 Twelve-Day War between Israel and Iran, which culminated in coordinated Israeli-American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. While the extent of the damage to Iran’s program remains contested, the attacks have intensified debates over the future trajectory of Tehran’s nuclear policy.² Iranian officials emphasize that the suspension of routine IAEA access does not amount to a total severing of ties with the agency. Rather, they insist that any future cooperation must be negotiated under a new roadmap that accounts for the post-war security environment.

However, Iran’s decision has already been met with intensified external pressures. In August 2025, the European parties to the 2015 nuclear agreement (Britain, France, and Germany) decided to activate the deal’s snapback mechanism, which would restore the full set of pre-2015 UN sanctions that had been lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. This decision was tied to the October expiration of key UN restrictions under Security Council Resolution 2231.³The EU’s drastic step underscores how Iran’s suspension of IAEA cooperation has become entwined with the broader debate over the longer-term credibility of international non-proliferation norms and standards.

In this climate of heightened uncertainty, experts and observers are increasingly drawing comparisons with Israel’s long-standing policy of “nuclear opacity.” The debate is stoked by the fact that Iranian officials have coupled their suspension of IAEA cooperation with warnings that, should pressure escalate further, they may even reconsider their NPT membership.⁴ The stakes are therefore acute. What appears for now as tactical ambiguity could evolve into a more entrenched posture of opacity, with profound consequences for both regional stability and the global non-proliferation regime.

However, any drift toward nuclear opacity must be measured against the conditions that make such a strategy sustainable: resilient infrastructure, political insulation, and airtight intelligence. In the wake of the Twelve-Day War, Iran lacks these pillars. Opacity is thus more likely to provoke renewed escalation than to strengthen deterrence. This policy note argues that a more pragmatic course lies in comprehensive diplomacy, including structured parallel engagement with Europe and the United States, alongside a framework for cooperation with the IAEA. This approach offers Tehran the only credible path to reduce its foes’ incentives for an attack, while preserving its rights under the NPT.

Nuclear Opacity: Concepts and Precedents

Nuclear opacity, also known as deliberate ambiguity, refers to a state’s policy of intentionally concealing the true status of its nuclear weapons capability. Under this approach, governments neither confirm nor deny possession of nuclear arms, nor do they disclose critical information regarding weapons development, operational readiness, or doctrine. While designed to maximize deterrence and strategic leverage, opacity also seeks to delay or avoid direct political, legal, or military repercussions ssociated with overt nuclearization.⁵

The most prominent and enduring example is Israel’s policy of Amimut. Since the late 1960s, Israel has maintained a posture whereby officials avoid publicly confirming that the country has a nuclear arsenal, despite widespread international consensus that it possesses an estimated 80-100 warheads.⁶ This ambiguity serves as both a deterrent against existential threats and a mechanism to avoid triggering sanctions or a regional arms race.

North Korea represents another model, that of a transition from opacity to overt weaponization. For years, Pyongyang maintained deliberate ambiguity over the scale and maturity of its nuclear program. Unlike Israel, North Korea eventually crossed the threshold through open testing, using demonstration rather than silence to entrench deterrence.⁷ This trajectory highlights a different lesson: that opacity may be transitional rather than permanent, serving as a bridge to overt weaponization when a state calculates that concealment no longer secures its objectives.

Other cases illustrate the risks of opacity when it fails. Iraq in the 1980s sought to conceal its nuclear program under a cover of ambiguity, only to see its progress derailed by the Israeli strike on the Osirak reactor in 1981 and, later, by intrusive international inspections after the 1990-91 Gulf War.⁸ Libya, for its part, experimented with covert development but ultimately abandoned its program through a negotiated deal in 2003, trading opacity for reduced international pressure.⁹ Both episodes underscore how opacity without sufficient insulation or resilience can collapse under external pressure, leaving states either disarmed by force or compelled into bargains on unfavorable terms.

Other states, including India, Pakistan, and China, have at various points relied on partial or selective opacity, though under very different conditions and with trajectories that ultimately diverged from the dilemmas facing Iran today.

Overall, these examples show that sustainable nuclear opacity depends on several conditions: technological maturity to sustain credible deterrence; political shielding through alliances or global standing; a tightly controlled domestic information environment to prevent leaks or intelligence breaches; and the ability to manage or absorb international pressure, including sanctions or preemptive threats. Without this combination, opacity risks becoming a temporary, reactive measure rather than a lasting strategic posture.

Retaliation and Tactical Ambiguity

Iran’s steps in the wake of unprecedented Israeli and U.S. strikes in June 2025 triggered comparisons to nuclear opacity, but their nature and intent remain more complex. Legally, the Islamic Republic remains a signatory to the NPT, and despite heightened rhetoric, to date it has not formally withdrawn. Instead, Iran’s parliament passed legislation mandating the suspension of cooperation with the IAEA until two conditions are met: full security guarantees for Iranian nuclear infrastructure and personnel, and recognition of Iran’s unrestricted right to undertake peaceful nuclear activities under Article IV of the NPT.¹⁰ The Guardian Council’s swift approval and President Pezeshkian’s enactment transformed the measure from political signaling into binding domestic law.

Practically, this move has already altered Iran’s nuclear posture. Under the new law, Tehran has ceased providing routine information to the IAEA, including data on uranium stockpile locations. Both the IAEA and Western powers are concerned that this development creates significant oversight gaps.

Compounding the ambiguity are Iran’s contradictory narratives in the aftermath of the strikes. Immediately after the attacks, officials and state media downplayed the scale of damage, portraying the nuclear program as resilient and largely unaffected.¹¹ Yet within days, senior figures, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged that the attacks caused severe disruption to enrichment operations, emphasizing that it remains unclear if and when Iran will be able to resume its nuclear activities at full capacity.¹² At the same time, officials continue expressing openness to diplomatic talks regarding the nuclear program. ¹³

Collectively, these actions could be interpreted as a strategy of tactical ambiguity, in that they sow uncertainty among adversaries regarding Iran’s remaining nuclear capacity and its ability to reconstitute its capabilities, all while preserving space for diplomatic maneuvering. But this remains distinct from a durable policy of nuclear opacity, which historically involves more than concealment. Nuclear opacity would require technological redundancy and resilience (i.e., a dispersed, hardened, and sustainable nuclear infrastructure), sustained political shielding, and the ability to withstand international pressure over the long term.

Domestic Debate and Technical Constraints

Iran’s incremental slide toward nuclear ambiguity reflects not a unified strategy, but an evolving and contested internal debate. The suspension of IAEA cooperation marks a significant shift, yet within Iran, questions persist about both the desirability and feasibility of embracing long-term nuclear opacity.

Hardline voices have been most explicit in advocating for a bolder posture. Javan newspaper, an outlet aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), frames the new law as the start of a “period of silence and ambiguity,” explicitly invoking parallels to Israel’s nuclear strategy.¹⁴ In the same vein, Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, stated “The Americans and the IAEA now don’t know where our enriched uranium is stored; they are in a state of uncertainty.”¹⁵ Some hardline figures have gone further, openly calling for Iran to pursue the capability to produce nuclear weapons or to adopt full Israeli-style opacity, citing the war and Israeli-U.S. attacks as proof that Iran’s current posture has failed to deter aggression.¹⁶

These calls, however, face complications rooted in Iran’s legal, ideological, and technical realities. Even among hardliners, loyalty to the Supreme Leader’s longstanding fatwa (religious verdict) prohibiting nuclear weapons presents a paradox. Some activists and officials have begun publicly urging Khamenei to revise this edict, but the fatwa remains in force, shaping Iran’s official narrative and constraining overt moves toward weaponization.¹⁷

On the legal front, experts argue that Iran lacks the political, diplomatic, and structural foundations necessary to replicate Israel’s opacity model, positing that Israel’s approach is sustained by robust international alliances, preferential treatment from global institutions, and—critically—systemic insulation from external inspections. These are advantages Iran does not possess.¹⁸  Some warn that attempts to mirror Israel’s strategy, without equivalent safeguards, risk triggering harsher international isolation or even military escalation.

Practical obstacles further complicate Iran’s trajectory. The recent war exposed its deep vulnerability to foreign intelligence infiltration, evidenced by the precision of Israeli strikes on sensitive nuclear sites, top military commanders, and key nuclear scientists.¹⁹ Such breaches undermine Iran’s ability to conceal enrichment infrastructure or protect critical stockpiles. Moreover, technological redundancy and resilience, hallmarks of viable opacity, remain beyond Iran’s reach for now. While Iran has demonstrated significant enrichment capacity, questions linger over its ability to assemble and deploy a weaponized capability swiftly, especially under sustained external pressure.

As such, despite mounting radical rhetoric and tactical moves toward selective and tactical ambiguity, Iran faces internal divides, legal constraints, and practical limitations that complicate (without entirely precluding) a drift toward institutionalized nuclear opacity.

International Dynamics and Policy Dilemmas

Apart from the internal challenges mentioned above, what distinguishes Iran’s current policy of ambiguity from other cases of durable opacity is the absence of systemic political insulation and external buy-in. Even Iran’s principal international partners, Russia and China, while vocally opposing Western pressure, have shown no willingness to endorse any drift toward formal opacity—much less a withdrawal from the NPT or overt weaponization.²⁰ For Moscow and Beijing, Iran remains a useful partner, but one whose open proliferation would destabilize the region and fracture global non-proliferation norms on which they both depend.

In parallel, Israel and the United States have already demonstrated that they perceive ambiguity itself as escalation. Israeli leaders consider Iran’s concealment of uranium stockpiles and construction of undisclosed enrichment sites as intolerable threats, warranting preemptive disruption.²¹ In the United States, President Donald Trump continues to promote the notion that Iran’s nuclear program has been obliterated. However, this narrative faces growing scrutiny, as evidence suggests that Iran retains significant residual capabilities. Simultaneously, both Israel and influential hawkish circles in Washington may already be pressuring Trump to adopt a harder line, including the possibility of renewed military action, should Iran continue its slide toward nuclear ambiguity.²²

This confluence creates a high-risk dynamic whereby ambiguity, far from diffusing tensions, may become a catalyst for another military confrontation. Yet with each cycle of attack and retaliation, Iran’s incentives to abandon ambiguity in favor of overt weaponization grow stronger, particularly if its leadership concludes that deterrence cannot be restored through half-measures alone.

The window for stabilizing this trajectory remains open but narrowing. Iran has used ambiguity to reclaim leverage, especially to defend its right to domestic enrichment under NPT regulations. But ambiguity, unanchored by renewed inspection mechanisms and credible diplomatic guarantees, risks becoming a slippery slope toward collapse of the NPT framework altogether.

For American and European policymakers, the stakes are high. Military strikes have proven incapable of eradicating Iran’s nuclear potential but highly effective at accelerating its political hardening. Compounding the risks, some Iranian officials have openly threatened to withdraw from the NPT altogether if UN sanctions are reimposed.²³ This step would mark a formal legal rupture and strip away the last remnants of international oversight of Tehran’s nuclear program. If ambiguity deepens without parallel diplomatic engagement, the international community may face the worst-case convergence: an emboldened, less transparent Iran edging closer to irreversible proliferation, with no viable monitoring regime in place.

In this environment, the restoration of meaningful inspections (such as through Iran’s formal ratification and implementation of the NPT’s Additional Protocol), the clarification of the legal boundaries around domestic enrichment, and the closing of the intelligence vacuum left by the Twelve‑Day war are among the few realistic measures left to contain Iran’s opacity experiment before it hardens into something far more destabilizing. In return, Tehran would need real incentives, such as the easing of economic sanctions, security assurances tied to a return to IAEA transparency, and formal recognition of its right to domestic enrichment under Article IV of the NPT. Reciprocal commitments could make re-engagement preferable to escalation, by offering strategic cover without rewarding weaponization.

Conclusion

Tehran’s current ambiguity must be judged against the record of states that have sought similar postures. Israel’s opacity endures because it rests on firm infrastructure, strong alliances, and strict secrecy. By contrast, Iraq’s and Libya’s covert programs collapsed under external pressure—one by force, the other by bargain—demonstrating the risks of pursuing opacity in the absence of such foundations. In the aftermath of the Twelve-Day War, Iran more closely resembles these vulnerable cases than Israel’s insulated model.

For Iran, opacity is thus unlikely to deliver durable deterrence, and more likely to invite renewed strikes and deeper international isolation. A more realistic path lies in comprehensive diplomacy that would include direct engagement with the United States to establish red lines and crisis-management channels; parallel talks with Europe to prevent escalation and link sanctions relief to phased transparency; and a recalibrated framework with the IAEA that protects sensitive facilities while restoring credible monitoring. This strategy would not reward weaponization, but it would offer Tehran the only viable route to preserve its nuclear rights under the NPT while reducing incentives for further attack.

At the same time, the North Korean precedent illustrates that ambiguity can harden into overt weaponization when diplomacy collapses. With growing voices in Tehran urging such a course, Iran may choose this path if it concludes that no face-saving deal is possible. That is why flexibility from the United States and Europe, recognizing Iran’s red lines and proposing trade-offs, remains equally critical to averting such an outcome.

Endnotes

¹ “Iran’s parliament approves bill on suspending cooperation with IAEA,” Reuters, June 25, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-parliament-approves-bill-suspend-cooperation-with-un-nuclear-watchdog-2025-06-25/.

² Nicole Grajewski, “Iran After the Battle,” Diwan (blog), July 1, 2025, https://carnegieendowment.org/middle-east/diwan/2025/07/iran-after-the-battle?lang=en.

³ Ellie Geranmayeh, “Snap Out of It: Europe, Iran and Nuclear Negotiations,” European Council on Foreign Relations, July 21, 2025, https://ecfr.eu/article/snap-out-of-it-europe-iran-and-nuclear-negotiations/.

⁴ Avner Cohen, “Israel and Iran’s Nuclear Strategies: Unexpected Parallels,” Haaretz, July 20, 2025, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-07-20/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-unexpected-parallels-in-israel-and-irans-nuclear-strategies/00000198-17ee-d89e-a7bf-77efb47a0000.

⁵ Krzysztof Tyszka-Drozdowski, “The Coming Age of Nuclear Opacity,” American Affairs Journal VI, no. 3 (Fall 2022), https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/08/the-coming-age-of-nuclear-opacity/.

⁶ “Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance,” Arms Control Association, January 2025, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nuclear-weapons-who-has-what-glance.

⁷ Shane Smith, North Korea’s Evolving Nuclear Strategy (Washington, DC: US-Korea Institute at SAIS, August 2015), https://wmdcenter.ndu.edu/Portals/97/Documents/Publications/Articles/Evolving-Nuclear-Strategy.pdf.

⁸ Pierre Goldschmidt, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: Six Lessons Not Yet Learned,” Arms Control Today, March 20, 2018, https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2018/03/nuclear-nonproliferation-six-lessons-not-yet-learned?lang=en.

⁹ Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, “Giving Up on the Bomb: Revisiting Libya’s Decision to Dismantle Its Nuclear Program,” Sources and Methods (blog), October 23, 2017, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/giving-the-bomb-revisiting-libyas-decision-to-dismantle-its-nuclear-program.

¹⁰ Patrick Wintour, “Iran’s Parliament Approves Bill to Suspend Cooperation with IAEA,” The Guardian, June 25, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/25/irans-parliament-approves-bill-to-suspend-cooperation-with-iaea.

¹¹ “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Are Indestructible [in Persian],” IRIB News, June 22, 2025, https://www.iribnews.ir/fa/news/5502235.

¹² Abbas Araghchi, “Fordow Is Seriously Damaged, but Iran’s Nuclear Program Will Not Be Destroyed by Bombing [in Persian],” Eco Iran, July 2, 2025, https://ecoiran.com/fa/tiny/news-96075.

¹³ Abbas Araghchi, “If Iran’s Interests Require It, We Will Negotiate [in Persian],” IRNA, June 26, 2025, https://www.irna.ir/news/85873893.

¹⁴ “The Beginning of a Period of Silence and Ambiguity [in Persian],” Javan Online, July 3, 2025, https://www.javanonline.ir/fa/news/1305494/.

¹⁵ Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, “The US and the IAEA Are Confused about the Location of Iran’s Enriched Uranium [in Persian],” Didban Iran, June 30, 2025, https://www.didbaniran.ir/fa/tiny/news-228126.

¹⁶ “Punishing Rafael Grossi with the ‘Nuclear Opacity’ Strategy [in Persian],” Farhikhtegan Daily, June 24, 2025, https://farhikhtegandaily.com/page/268788/.

¹⁷ “Request to the Leader to Change the Fatwa on the Prohibition of Building an Atomic Bomb [in Persian],” Khabar Online, October 15, 2024, https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1971355.

¹⁸ Reza Nasri, “Notes on ‘Strategic Ambiguity’ in Iran’s Nuclear Program [in Persian],” Jamaran, July 3, 2025, https://www.jamaran.news/fa/tiny/news-1673584.

¹⁹ “How Extensive Are Israel’s Intelligence Operations inside Iran?” Al Jazeera, June 23, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/23/how-extensive-are-israels-intelligence-operations-inside-iran.

²⁰ Edward Wong, “China and Russia Keep Their Distance from Iran During Crisis,” The New York Times, July 6, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/us/politics/axis-china-russia-iran-north-korea.html.

²¹ Amichai Stein, “Netanyahu Seeks US Mechanism for Approval on Future Iran Strikes if Nuclear Threat Resurfaces,” The Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2025, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-860175.

²² Andrew Roth, “Republican Hawks vs Maga Isolationists: The Internal War That Could Decide Trump’s Iran Response,” The Guardian, June 17, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/republican-hawks-vs-maga-isolationists-the-internal-war-that-could-decide-trumps-iran-response.

²³ “Iran Warns It May Withdraw from N.P.T. if U.N. Sanctions Are Reinstated,” IRNA, June 12, 2025, https://en.irna.ir/news/85859600/Iran-warns-it-may-withdraw-from-N-P-T-if-U-N-sanctions-are.